To My Wife
by hopelesslyhalfhearted
Summary: A series of one-shots giving an insight to married life for our 2 favourite pathologists, inspired by the blog 'To My Wife'
1. Chapter 1

**So, you know, computers are great and all, but when they decide to crash and make you lose ALL your work and files and music and photos and general lovely stuff...not so great.**

**I will update my other stories, but right now I'm far too annoyed to begin rewriting all the chapters that I'd already done. **

**In the meanwhile, enjoy some random oneshots? **

**Inspired by the TO MY WIFE blog. It's fab. **

Your Birthday

_I hope you like pancakes, because I'll be making them. Happy Birthday._

He crept out of bed, slowly peeling the duvet off, careful not to disturb her, before tiptoeing out of the room, grabbing a t-shirt on his way.

When she woke and saw that he was already up, she double checked the bedside clock to make sure it was actually Saturday. Certain that it was, she lay still for a moment, confused as to what was going on. Once dressed, she made her way into the kitchen of the house that they had bought the month before. Boxes were still scattered about, some of them hadn't even been opened.

"What are you doing?" She mumbled, rubbing her eyes as she sat down on one of the barstools.

"Birthday pancakes," She thought about his answer for a while.

"Whose birthday is it?"

"Have you hit your head?" He chuckled and prepared to flip one.

"It's the 5th September already?" He planted a soft kiss on her forehead, continuing to chuckle, before getting back to pancakes. "God,"

"Going senile already?"

"I've been busy,"

"Don't lie," He began putting the pancakes onto two plates. "People in your line of business get a significant drop in sales when they get into your condition,"

"Shut up." She smiled. "Where's my present?"

"I mean," He ignored her question. "Who'd want to pay for sex with a pregnant lady?"

"I understood your malicious joke the first time, Harry."

"Just checking," He grinned widely, before grabbing the chocolate sauce.


	2. Chapter 2

At the Movies

_You can share my peanut M&M's, but you better act fast._

"Daddy," He felt a small finger poking him and turned around to see what his daughter needed.

"Hmm?"

"I can't see," The little girl whispered and pointed discreetly at the head of the bald man in front of them, who Harry figured must have either been 10ft tall or have an abnormally long body. He was reminded regularly that she had inherited her mother's manners, something he was grateful for in many situations.

"We'll swap seats," He offered, as the person sat in front of him seemed to be a dwarf. Maybe David and Goliath were out on a date.

"I still can't see," She complained.

"Ok," He was becoming increasingly conscious that if they carried on with the shuffling about they'd end up missing the beginning of the film. "Stand up a sec," She did as she was told and he proceeded to position his coat on her chair, forming a make-shift cushion. "Niks, coat please,"

"What?" She leaned over their son to see what was happening. "Oh," She handed over her coat and scarf. As he positioned them, he realised she had left the bag of Minstrels that they had hidden (they both refused to pay £10 for 5 pieces of popcorn and a malteser) in the coat pocket; he took it out and stuffed the full packet into the cup holder next to him.

Finally, his daughter sat down and smiled at him contently, just as the opening credits came on. He opened up the chocolates and after a taking a handful for himself, slyly put them back into the holder, hoping nobody had noticed.

"Daddy," She begun to poke him again. "Daddy,"

"Shush, the film's started,"

"Daddy," Each time she repeated it she got louder, until Harry eventually had to relent, for fear of the rather stern glare the man in front had turned around and given.

"What is it, Abby?"

"Mummy wants you," He looked towards his wife, who sat silently, eyes focused on the screen, but with her hand out flat.

Sighing, he poured some of the sweets onto her palm. Sometimes, he wished she didn't know him quite so well.


	3. Chapter 3

Public

_For our first public appearance, balcony or not, I'll kiss you way more than twice. Just saying._

"Harry,"

"_Yes?" _He tried to sound completely calm, hoping that maybe it would rub off on her.

"Are you nervous?"

"_Why would I be nervous? Nothing big is happening, is there?" _

"I'm being serious, Harry," She had to sit on the hand that wasn't holding the phone, to stop herself pulling at her eyelashes. She always did it when she was nervous; she always had done.

"_Niks," _He wasn't really sure if they were meant to be on the phone; wasn't having no contact the whole point of not being allowed to see each other? _"Of course I am."_

"Me too."

"_But not because I think I'm doing the wrong thing." _It was awkward, really. Usually he wouldn't have to talk her through things like this; he'd just hug her, and stroke her hair, and make a joke, and then she'd understand everything. He didn't like talking about the important stuff. _"I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm just scared I'll forget my lines, or I'll stand on your dress when we're dancing, or I'll fall head first into the cake." _He had a feeling that between the two of them, it would be a miracle if they managed to keep their clumsiness under control for an entire day.

"You just have to repeat whatever the priest says, how hard can it be?" The question was direct at herself, as much as to him.

"_Easy peasy."_

"Lemon squeezy."

"_Exactly."_

"How many times will you kiss me?"

"_What?"_

"How many times will you kiss me?"

"_I...when?"_

"Tomorrow,"

"_I hadn't really planned it out. Why?"_

"I just wanted to have everything planned out."

"_I'll kiss you as many times as you want me to,"_

"Can you try not to smudge my lipstick?" He chuckled, knowing that if he managed to, she'd spend at least half an hour in the toilet trying to fix it before she allowed anyone to take photos.

"_I'll see you tomorrow,"_

"Night." She was the first to hang up; if she hadn't, she knew they'd manage to end up speaking until past one, and there was no way Harry would be able to wake up at 7 on a Sunday to get ready, if he hadn't had 8 hours sleep, even if it was his wedding day.


	4. Chapter 4

Friday Night

_Chinese food, crap TV, late night, bed._

As she shut down her computer, tired out after a long day, she comforted herself with the thought that it was Friday; her first week back since 2 glorious weeks off for their honeymoon, had finally finished. It seemed to drag on longer than most weeks; she reasoned that this was because she'd spent the previous fortnight driving around America, doing whatever took her fancy. She was also very much looking forward to a night of absolutely no effort – her reports were finished; Harry had had the day off, so in theory he'd done housework; it was takeaway night, and, most important of all, she'd recorded Midsomer Murders early in the week for them to watch.

The first thing she noticed as she walked in the door was the smell. Then, as she wondered into the kitchen to investigate, she saw the bombsite.

"Harry!" She couldn't help but laugh at the sight of him stood over the counter, furiously stirring a pan of pasta. He turned on the spot, his face a mixture of rage and embarrassment, with flour covering one of his cheeks. "What are you doing?"

"Bloody recipe said it would thicken when you stirred in the pasta," He mumbled before turning back. After putting her bag and coat down, she wrapped her arms around his back and let her chin rest on his shoulder, observing his attempts to save the disaster – she wasn't quite sure what he was actually trying to make.

"What are you doing?"

"Making you dinner,"

"It's a Friday night..."

"I know, but I just thought I'd make an effort, you know," He began to mumble, realising how silly he looked. She managed to pick out something along the lines of 'impress you'.

"Sweetheart, I've spent the past 5 years having Friday night takeaway with you. Anyway, you've already got me bound for life," She waggled her wedding ring finger in his face. "So you don't need to impress me." She leant over and took a string of spaghetti, instantly regretting it as the taste hit her tongue. "That's foul."

"I know."

"Chinese or Indian?"

"Chinese."


	5. Chapter 5

Please Don't

_Hog the blankets at night. If you do, I will take them right back. Love is pain._

He wasn't used to not having Nikki at work with him – for the past 10 years they'd pretty much started and finished each working day together (apart from the rare occasion that either of them actually took any of their annual leave) He comforted himself with the fact that he was still able to start and finish each day with her – just with time apart in between. He was beginning to think she might not come back to work at all after her maternity leave was over- despite her saying to the contrary; he had a feeling that she'd much rather spend her days watching Disney classics with Abby than cutting up dead bodies with him.

The worst part though, was not the few hours apart during the day, it was the nights on call where he had to drag himself out of bed, _without _waking her, and then come home hours later to a dark, silent home. On his first call out when she was on leave, he'd completely forgotten and woken her – he had trouble remembering a moment in their relationship where she had been more annoyed with him.

As he crept up the stairs, and slowly pushed the door open (like him, she was a stupidly light sleeper), he couldn't help rubbing his hands vigorously up and down his arms, trying to warm up – he often mused that, if people _had _to be insane murderers, they could at least have the courtesy to do it in summer and during the day. He peeled his sodden clothes off and slid into bed. He glanced over at her serene sleeping face – she almost looked like she was smiling; he noticed that she was still in her clothes and that the collar of her shirt had some baby sick on it. He briefly reconsidered his next action, she must have been exhausted, but then, so was he – and when he was that tired, as a general rule he wasn't overly selfless.

"Bastard," She moaned, as he pulled the duvet to his side.

**I apologize for the lack of updates – I looked and I can't believe I've haven't posted **_**anything **_**for about a month. These past 3 weeks I've been in Malawi and South Africa volunteering – most amazing time of my life – now I can see why Nikki likes it so much :D **

**Hopefully, I'll be updating more, as it summer holidays.**

**ALSO, read loads of stories and haven't reviewed as I've been on my iPod – I WILL REVIEW (eventually)**

**:) **


	6. Chapter 6

When We Land

_In the Caribbean for whatever reason, I promise I will never clap. I'll roll my eyes with you at the people who do._

Harry hated it when his children cried in public – he hated it when they cried at all, of course – but he particularly hated public tantrums. He could feel the glare of people as they walked past, judging his parenting skills – it was even worse when he was on his own without Nikki, they may as well have shouted out "Look, it's Daddy time, with the hopeless Dad who usually leaves the parenting to his wife.". He wasn't a hopeless Dad (at least, he hoped not) and he most definitely did _not _leave all the parenting to his wife – he knew Abby's favourite food, colour and animal, even though they changed weekly – he helped with Peter's ridiculously irregular sleeping patterns and all the other crap.

To Harry, the only thing worse than a child crying in a public place, was a child crying on an airplane.

He'd always looked sympathetically at the poor parent who had to sit there, trying to get the little brat to shut up, watching as they turned redder and redder out of embarrassment, as more passengers began glaring at them.

He never thought he'd be the one getting glared at.

Peter had stayed awake for the whole flight, demanding that his Daddy entertained him and watched movies with him – as there was only one Disney film to watch, this soon became monotonous, and Harry eventually mastered the technique of sneakily watching a film on his own screen out of the corner of his eye. He kept snatching glances at a sleeping Nikki, who was sat in the other aisle seat on their row of four, with Abby curled up sleeping across her lap. He wanted to demand that they swap the children around, so he could sit next to the nice, peaceful one.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as Peter's head slowly began droop, until eventually he was sleeping. His bliss didn't last for long, though; he groaned as he noticed that they only had 5 minutes until they began their descent into Johannesburg – there was no way his son would sleep through the landing.

Sure enough, 10 minutes later, Harry found himself attempting various methods of subduing Peter's screams. He tried shoving a dummy in his mouth (even though, technically, Nikki was trying to wean him off them); he had an incredibly animated conversation with Mr Fluff Bear; he attempted bouncing him up and down on his knee; and, rather reluctantly, he even resorted to his silly face routine. In public.

The plane dropped lower and lower, and at the point where the pressure caused his ears to pop, Peter somehow managed to crank up the volume even further. Harry looked towards Nikki, pleading with her to take him – she handed him another dummy to replace the one that Peter had thrown far away, and tried to look as sympathetic as possible. As Harry tried putting the new dummy into his son's mouth, the lid of the cheap bottle, which they'd bought at the airport, fell off in the scuffle. Sticky juice spilt all over Peter. Harry cursed himself for having forgotten the trusty Tommee Tippee cup at home.

As he felt the wheels touch down onto the tarmac, Harry couldn't imagine his situation being any worse. Then there was applause. People were bloody clapping. He looked towards Nikki, who, predictably, was sat with both hands firmly on either hand rest, resisting the urge to shout for everyone to shut up. He smiled.

Then Peter wailed.


End file.
